Row over Epsom tea tape brews up

National Party leader John Key and Act Party member John Banks. Photo / Dean Purcell

The taping of a private conversation between Prime Minister John Key and Act Epsom candidate John Banks is becoming a distraction for National and Act, and the police are now involved.

Mr Key has said the content of the tape is "bland", but yesterday, he decided to lay a formal complaint with the police about the taping of his conversation with Mr Banks by freelance cameraman Bradley Ambrose.

As a result, the police issued a warning to news services that disclosing unlawfully intercepted private communications was an offence punishable by up to two years' jail.

The recording was made of the eight-minute conversation between Mr Key and Mr Banks on Friday.

The pair invited media to witness their cup of tea together in a Newmarket cafe - a signal to National voters to give Mr Banks their Epsom electorate vote.

Ambrose said he put the recording device, which transmits to his camera, on the table to record Mr Banks when reporters were allowed into the cafe.

He then forgot about it when journalists were asked to leave the men alone and he hurried outside to try to get a better camera shot of the pair.

"It just completely left my mind and I was just trying to get the shot like everyone else," he told Newstalk ZB.

Ambrose later gave his recording to the Herald on Sunday - a separate publication from the New Zealand Herald - without listening to it.